Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
The Olympus E-P1 should be available soon for hands-on treatment; however, you can ensure you are at the front of the line by pre-ordering the new Micro Four Thirds camera at several reputable online retailers. Check out the availability below, then hit the poll at the bottom to weigh in on whether you’d pick up the E-P1 as your personal camera of choice. The following retailers are trustworthy and, notably, accepting pre-orders for the Olympus E-P1.
After almost a year of teasing and “news”, Olympus has finally unveiled it’s first Micro Four Thirds camera, the Olympus E-P1. The new E-P1 features a 12.3 megapixel sensor and offers users the ability to switch lenses. It has no mirror box between the lens and the image sensor, so it is effectively a full time live view camera. Because of the sensor size in Micro Four Thirds cameras, the Olympus E-P1 has a 2x crop factor applied to lens focal lengths. As a result, a 14mm focal length on the E-P1 is effectively equivalent to the angle of view of a 28mm lens on a 35mm or full frame camera. The Olympus E-P1 carries a retail price of $749 (body only), $799 (w/ 14-42mm lens), and $899 (w/ 17mm lens and external viewfinder) and should be available for purchase in July 2009.
Check availability on Amazon.com.
For additional details, see the press release below. [Read more…]
Purportedly, this is the back panel of the coming Olympus E-P1. You can’t really glean a whole lot from this pic, other than it appears to have normal digital camera functions. Photo Rumors breaks down what they think all these buttons mean.
Nothing to see here. Move along now.
[via Photo Rumors]
The Olympus E-P1 is a 12.3 megapixel quasi-compact camera that offers users the ability to switch lenses. It has no mirror box between the lens and the image sensor, so it is effectively a full time live view camera. Because of the sensor size in Micro Four Thirds cameras, the Olympus E-P1 has a 2x crop factor applied to lens focal lengths. As a result, a 14mm focal length on the E-P1 is effectively equivalent to the angle of view of a 28mm lens on a 35mm or full frame camera.
The Olympus E-P1 is the camera many enthusiasts have been waiting for.
They have delivered a game-changing camera that may not be for everybody but if the size, shape, and ability to use so many different kinds of lenses, from Olympus and many others appeals to you, as it does to me, you’ll want an E-P1.
Detail is very good and with around two to three stops of exposure and detail headroom in the RAWs there’s plenty of extra detail to pull out of shadows and highlights if you need to.
It surpasses the E-620, offering a leap forward in low-light performance, so much so that the E-P1 is the first Four Thirds camera to offer comparable quality to an APS-C DSLR, despite the smaller sensor size. Olympus have certainly made real strides here.
After examining my 900 images and dozens of HD video clips, I can confirm that the E-P1 and M. Zuiko lenses live up to their full potential.
Well, I was won over by the image quality and that at the end of the day is probably the single most important factor and so makes this a camera one I cannot help but recommend.
So far we think that the image quality is nice and likely even better than the E-620 (and we like using E-620 a lot).
The Olympus E-P1 is an otherwise excellent enthusiast compact camera hampered by some performance problems and the lack of a viewfinder and built-in flash.
I was very pleased with the image quality from the E-P1’s 12.3-megapixel Live MOS imager and TruePic V imager processor.
Image quality is excellent – with excellent colour, and good levels of saturation and contrast with excellent detail. Noise levels were very low and provided useable ISO1600 (and possibly higher) – with less colour noise than even the Canon 450D, and provided much better detail from the Olympus kit lens, than the Canon’s kit lens.
As for things like focussing, The E-P1 makes use of 11-point focus system which worked well under our tests, albeit a tad sluggish.
Pocket-Lint (first look review)
The Olympus E-P1 is a true hybrid, falling into the space between compact and DSLR. It is distinctly different in its offering and may, for some, be appealing as a result
Wired UK (hands-on report)
Its technical proficiency makes this a very good camera. What makes it great is its sense of style, which leaves an SLR feeling clunky by comparison.